EDUCATION AND PAKISTAN

EDUCATION AND PAKISTAN

Education is a building block and a baseline in upbringing of an individual as well as the development of a country. The educated manpower of a nation determines its prosperity and socio-economic evolution. The knowledgeable people have the potential to represent their culture in the whole world and compete with the modern age. Pakistan is one of the emerging educated manpower in the world where they outshine in almost every field.

Pakistan is a part of the world treaty Millennium Development Goals, 2000 (MDGs). The two among the eight goals are focused solely on improving the educational system. The goals are set to achieve primary education and gender equality, in which women are encouraged facilitated to get an education.

Statistics of Education

The literacy rate is not up to the mark in Pakistan due to the political and socio-economic situation. Poverty, terrorism, as well as the unemployment ratio, hinder the educational status.

The literacy rate is 70% in Pakistan where 75.5% males and 59.8% females are literate. The government expenditure on education is just 7% of GDP.

Diverse Education Systems

There is diversity in the education system in Pakistan. There is a major distinction among the different educational systems such as government, private, and madrassa. All of them follow a different curriculum. There is no uniformity when it comes to learning the international languages and religious content. The educational system is under the great influence of the British colonization that happened before the separation of the sub-continent. Under that influence, several private institutions follow the British curriculum. On the other hand, the madrassas follow religious content in most of the proportion of their curriculum.

The economic affordability of such divisions further categorizes people into many classes such as the upper/high-class, the middle-class, and the lower-class. This division of classes drags people to encounter difficulties in further national and international level performance in different fields.

There are 6 levels of division in general in the educational system in Pakistan. These are pre-school, primary, middle, high, intermediate, and university.

Education Trends

Keeping the current scenarios in mind, people in Pakistan tend towards getting an education in the disciplines with more productivity. They prefer the fields with more scope and employment opportunities. Getting an education has become a long term investment where they can cash that back with high returns. It has been witnessed that people in Pakistan run after some particular trends that are successful in a particular time.

The popular streams that Pakistanis followed over the period are medical sciences, engineering, computer sciences, business management, and the most recent one is e-commerce.

Educational Institutes as Business

The growing trend of doing business in Pakistan led a portion of businessmen to try in the field of education as well. They establish private schools, universities, and other vocational training centers. The private schools are very common that one can find easily in every second street of the town. This facilitates local people to have access to primary education. Whereas, on the other side of the coin those who are working on the backend compromise quality education provision and mainly focus on fetching a high amount of money out of the parents’ pockets.

Online Education System in Pandemic Situation

There has been seen a great deviation in the traditional education system due to the pandemic situation in the whole world. Pakistan is no exception. Nowadays, there is a growing trend of a distant learning system that takes place through online sessions. That seems a very good initiative for the students not to lag behind the stream and continue studies sitting at home. This helps the management and teachers of the institutions to run their institutes and not get unemployed. This trend is seen more popular in the private sector, as there is a lack of access and affordability of the means of the online system among the people living in rural areas belonging to the lower-middle-class who are generally enrolled in the government institutes.

Teaching-the most liked Profession among Females

Pakistan has a rich culture and people, in general, follow intense traditional values. Due to that, there are stereotypes attached to gendered employment opportunities. Teaching in educational institutions is the most favorite profession among females in Pakistan. It is preferred as it helps protect their femininity through working in the same gendered environment. It is considered a respectful and non-challenging profession.

Family Values and Education

Despite the low literacy rate, education is one of the most important aspects of Pakistani families. They spend a huge part of their income on the education of their children. That is considered as the long term investment that will help stabilize their status in the future depending on their children. So, getting a quality education for the children is one of the main aims of every family unit in Pakistan.

Islamic Teachings and Education

Pakistan was created in the name of Islam. It is a Muslim country and the majority of its population is Muslims. Religion is embedded in their values and norms. Education is obligatory for both genders according to Islamic teachings. This very basic doctrine motivates them to get an education as a religious obligation as well as a need of the hour.

Development in Education System

The current government is working hard for improving the education system in Pakistan. The national plans are being formalized to implement uniformity of the curriculum, increased access to primary education to boost up the literacy rate, and more budget allocation to this concern. More than ten universities in Pakistan are ranked among the top 100 universities in Asia. The Madrassas (religious schools) are now diversified through adding up all the disciplines besides religious teachings in their curriculum. Pakistan has been listed as having 439 international schools by the International Schools Consultancy(ISC), 2015. Pakistani students are making world records in different fields of education.